


Oceanside

by Iamacat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamacat/pseuds/Iamacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quadrants shouldn’t have been this messy, he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oceanside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosae/gifts).



It was supposed to be an easy choice, so easy that it shouldn’t have been a choice at all: spend his first winter break at home– meaning spending the entire break watching human Christmas movies by himself in an empty contract hive in a Georgian town called Plugwood– or spend the break with his matesprit and moirail at Eridan’s oceanside home in Connecticut. Eridan put on his best front making this suggestion, laughably playing the magnanimous troll he imagined himself to be. It was the kind of image that Karkat flushed for him for.

Rare were the moments Eridan didn’t act even a little like a douchebag, sometimes in small matters that were easily overlooked and sometimes in ways that had Karkat hanging off the alumni wall pulling at his hair like he was trying to make performance art out of scalping himself. This time was no exception. Eridan never bothered hiding the fact he didn’t like _any_ of Karkat’s friends, Sollux included. Obviously he only extended the plus one invitation under prurient motivations, and though Karkat would cut his tongue out before admitting it, the ploy worked. Knowing that Eridan was going to bite his lip for five straight weeks inspired a surge of tenderness within him that cloyed and festered in his abdomen for the weeks leading up to the trip.

Of course, Sollux didn’t see the selflessness in Eridan’s gesture.

“It’s so obviously desperate I can’t believe even he’s stooped that low. Only the biggest idiot would fall for it. Oh, that would be you, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re right. I’m the idiot. I want to spend my first winter break in college with my moirail and my matesprit in a private beach house. You know, he only invited you. You don’t have to accept. What’s your problem with him anyway?”

It was a question Karkat sometimes wondered. Sollux and Eridan were a couple sweeps older and two semesters ahead of him, and clearly there was some sort of history there that he’d unknowingly walked into. Sollux never gave a straight answer, and Karkat never pulled together the nerve to ask Eridan.

“He’s a total douchebag. I can’t make it any clearer than that, KK. I don’t even know why I have to explain this to you, you spend so much time with him you’d think he was all your quadrants.”

Karkat’s expression immediately softened, penitent. “Do you think I prefer to spend time with him over you?”

“What? No. I can’t imagine anyone willingly spending so much time with him without hating everything about him. I think it shows you have the patience of a saint to not hate him even a little bit, let alone being in the flushed quadrant with him. You must be some kind of self-hating masochist, you poor piece of shit. Wait, that makes me sound pathetic and jealous. _FUCK_.”

Karkat’s hand shot out to pap Sollux’s cheek. He shooshed and papped without even thinking, just feeling guilty that he’d pressed and worked Sollux up like this. Their moirallegiance wasn’t always ideal; they had their secrets from each other, and both were open and closed about their feelings in fickle fits that could flip without a moment’s notice, but they were best friends and Karkat never wanted to worry his moirail for a second. When Sollux caught his breath, he shut down his computer and they both went out to lay in one of the leaf piles scattered around the quad. Lying in the golden and red leaves, they stopped talking about Eridan for a little while.

~

They spent the nights of their winter break at Eridan’s beach house mostly inside, and with it being two warmbloods versus one seadweller, not even Eridan could argue against the logic of superior numbers, so the heat was blasted at nearly 80 degrees the whole month. Eridan directed a comment at Sollux about fitness and failure to adapt to the environment, but he shut up when Karkat put his foot down. In other matters Karkat would have stalwartly stood by his matesprit, it was his house after all and Karkat and Sollux were guests, but in this case he disliked being cold more than the frustration that would be brought on trying to compromise on the thermostat. Outnumbered, Eridan relented, grumbling about how they were taking advantage of him being a host. Sollux responded with a dismissive snort and his middle finger.

After the matter was settled, Eridan kept his complaints to himself. Sometime in the middle of the night he would pass by whichever room Karkat and Sollux were hanging out in and say, “I’m goin’ for a walk.” Karkat would look up from his computer or the book he was reading.

“Wait.” And Eridan would while Karkat pulled on his jacket– the one he’d bought a month ago because he’d never needed one before and didn’t own one– and gloves and earmuffs and heavy winter boots.

The moonlight reflected blindingly off the fresh snow. For once, Eridan did most of the talking while Karkat huddled into his jacket, hugging his arms as close to himself as possible to wring out every last infinitesimal degree of heat his body allowed him. After about a mile the seawall abruptly ended and they turned around toward home. On the way back, an arm slipped around Karkat’s waist and pulled him close. Their buddies fit snug together perfectly. Eridan was too high on the hemospectrum to offer much reprieve from the cold, but a viscous, magmatic pity rose in Karkat’s chest and warmed him enough to finish the last stretch home.

~

There was a theater in the town about half an hour from the beach house, and since December was typically the off-season for beach property it was never crowded. There weren’t a lot of movies out this year he wanted to see, but he made it a point to see the ones he did. Sometimes Eridan went with him, sometimes it was Sollux. About two weeks into the break, he decided to catch the new Angelina Jollie movie before it left theaters, and to his surprise and delight both of them offered to go.

They picked seats close to the front aisle and in the middle where they could prop their legs up on the railings without being bugged by the staff. The movie lived down to the expectations of Sollux and Eridan, who watched it dutifully on either side of Karkat while he watched with a stubborn intensity of someone who would never admit they were wrong about a trailer. In the dark, his and Sollux’s hands slipped between the seats and clasped together, Karkat flashing an appreciative smile that he wasn’t sure if Sollux caught or not. On his other side, Eridan’s hand smoothed over the inside of his thigh. Karkat glanced back only to see Eridan watching the onscreen couple indifferently. A gnawing feeling came up in his gut like he was being pulled apart. Their hands held him with tense jealousy.

“Bathroom,” Sollux whispered a little louder than he should have and pulled his hand away. An hour into the movie, it was understandable. Karkat thought nothing of it. Barely heard him.

A moment later, Eridan lightly touched Karkat’s shoulder. “I’m goin’ for a refill. Want me to get you more licorice?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Karkat patted the hand distractedly.

After twenty minutes, neither of them had returned, and the movie became background noise as Karkat begun to worry. He tip-toed out of the nearly-empty theater to the lobby. Eridan was nowhere to be seen at the snack counters, which left the bathrooms. As he approached the one closest to their theater, Karkat heard raised but muffled voices coming from behind the door. When he entered, he heard them distinctly:

“I’m pretty fuckin’ sick a your attitude. It’s about time you got shown your place again.” Eridan’s voice.

“Hahaha. What do you mean, ‘again’? I was looking forward to the movie but I should have guessed this was your plan all along. What’s the definition of insanity?” That was Sollux.

Several things happened at the same moment: Eridan hurled his soda at Sollux, Sollux ducked to the side while Karkat was coming in behind him, the door to the bathroom burst open and a burly man in a white uniform entered the bathroom, and while all three turned their attention to him the soda smacked Karkat right in the gut, spilling all down his front. They stood in awkward silence for a moment, processing what had just happened.

Eridan bit his lip. “Kar, I didn’t see you-”

“I need to ask all three of you to leave the premises now.” The security officer gestured toward the exit. Not even Eridan dared challenge the officer, which was probably the first intelligent thing he’d managed to do all day. The three trolls filed out of the bathroom and out of the theater.

In the parking lot, Karkat turned on both of them and threw his fists on the roof of the car.  

“What the hell is wrong with you two? It was one two-hour movie. All you had to do was sit in a perfectly comfortable seat and watch the screen for one hundred and twenty minutes!” He didn’t wait for either of them to offer an answer when they’d exchanged guilty glances. “Oh, forget it.” He slammed the passenger side door close and isolated himself by focusing on blotting out the soda stains from his pants. The whole way back to the house not one of them spoke.

~

Sollux found him in the pile of blankets he’d put together in the living room. While Karkat had shared Eridan’s bedroom during the stay and kept his stuff there, Eridan had, of all things, a waterbed instead of a recuperacoon or a regular mattress. The novelty of sleeping on water wore off immediately after the first five minutes because wow it’s a terrible idea and there’s no back support, and Karkat had gathered every spare blanket and pillow he could find to make a comfortable pile to get some actual rest.

Sollux sat down next to him.

“You and Eridan used to be a thing, huh,” Karkat said. He didn’t need Sollux to confirm it, though the look on his face said volumes. They were too nasty to each other to ever have been platonic. The only question was why it had taken him so long to put two and two together.

Sollux shrugged his shoulders. “I spend a lot of time trying to forget that part."

“You could have told me from the beginning.”

“This is between me and him. Always has been,” he insisted.

“God damn it, you thick fuck. Why can’t you open up and tell me what this is all about?”

“Because there’s nothing to talk about and it’s kind of a private matter, KK. I dated his moirail but he was stupid and jealous so we all kind of broke up. But then he and I were kind of black for a while last semester but I didn’t really think he was worth the effort so I broke it off. I feel so embarrassed that I even wasted one minute of my time with him I want to forget the whole thing ever happened, but then he goes behind my back and starts dating my moirail because he’s petty like that and can’t let go. Is that open enough for you?”

Petty? Sollux spoke as if Eridan had orchestrated his relationship with Karkat as a black gesture for him, which was... unthinkable, in the sense Karkat didn’t want to admit it was a possibility that he was being used and hadn’t seen it. But then a new tide of ire came roaring forth. If Sollux had thought this was the case the entire time, why was he only mentioning it to Karkat now?

Karkat crossed his arms and said, “It’s something better than nothing, so I guess I should bow down before you and kiss your stinking feet in gratitude you offered me that much. Only watch how I don’t, because you’re the biggest shit-smelling scumbag I’ve ever had the misfortune to know, and I’m dating Eridan Ampora. I never thought to interrogate him about all his past lovers, but you’re supposed to be my moirail and my friend.”

“Fuck this.” Sollux abruptly jumped to his feet, kicking a spare blanket over Karkat’s head. “This is so stupid. Like I told you over and over he’s a useless knucklesponged asshole but I was basically just wasting more of my time because you obviously didn’t listen. Good fucking luck with that.” He stalked out of the room, dragging his feet to leave scuff marks on the wood floors.

Karkat wouldn’t let him have the last word in this. “Eridan may be an asshole, but he’s not the one walking away leaving behind a pisstrail like an immature grub!”

~

“I’m more angry at him than I am at you right now but that can easily change,” Karkat warned when Eridan knocked on the door to their room. He’d gone back there to hide from Sollux, but he should have known in that place he’d run into Eridan eventually. Or maybe he had thought of it subconsciously and did it for that exact purpose. Sometimes he really could be his own worst enemy.

Eridan hesitated, and for a second he acted as though he meant to leave without saying anything. “I don’t need to take this shit from you. I didn’t do anythin’ wrong that nubhumpin’ pissblood didn’t do already.”

Indignant, Karkat bolted up on the bed, which meant he wobbled and struggled to find some footing to roll off the bed and storm across the room. “No, you do need to take shit from me.” Karkat jabbed his finger at Eridan’s chest and bared his teeth. He was so sick and tired of it all he didn’t care at this point what became of them. He just wanted the mess over with. “I think I’ve been pretty patient with you two going for each other’s throats, and if I’m being honest it was kind of cute at first how much you two disliked each other. But all you’ve been doing since we got here is try to make this vacation suck as hard as possible and neither of you dipshits have the courtesy to tell me why. It’s like you’re trying to get me to auspistize between you and I am literally this close to throwing my arms up and doing it because you obviously want it so badly.”

Eridan must have been legitimately shocked by the accusation because he stared at Karkat for several seconds with wide, pitiful eyes. “That’s not true,” he said. His face was screwed with anger but his lower lip quivered, a move which would have swayed Karkat another time to sympathy but now it infuriated him. Eridan couldn’t be weak. Not now when Karkat wanted nothing more than to unleash unholy rage at him.

“It’s not true, he says! Then why don’t you care to enlighten me for once in the whole regrettable time we’ve been together, because I would love to know what the truth is! Here I am, arms outstretched, my ears an open and willing receptacle for any veracious statement you vomit out of your windchute.”

“Well hear my truth like the hailing of a thousand angels’ golden trumpets. I’m sure he’s never told his moirail this, but the only reason he’s upset is because when he started gettin’ his red on for my moirail, _she_ broke up with _me_ , and now the proverbial piper’s playing his sweet, ominous melody of certain doom.”

It was Karkat’s turn to go slack-jawed with shock. He opened his mouth to respond but had nothing to say except, “What are you even talking about?”

“I’m sure he told you there was a time where we were waxin’ pitch for each other. I’d say he was downright bellicose, not that flimsy cantankerousness he shows to everybody. I used to be special to him.”

“He didn’t put it in those words. What happened?”

“You’ve already taken his side. You don’t really want to hear what I got to say.”

“Yes I do, Goddammit. How am I supposed to understand this mess if you don’t tell me?”

Eridan took a deep breath, released it, then after a moment’s consideration began talking. Despite being furious only a moment ago, he spoke in a low tone fit for a confessional. He hardly detracted to his usual theatrics, and Karkat finally understood how serious this was to him. It was, as Eridan put it, a thing for fake fairybook romances: he’d grown up with his childhood friend, Feferi, and in a prepubescent fit had fallen hard in the red for her, except she’d taken him for a moirail instead. Sollux entered the picture as a rival suitor for her red affections. When Eridan had finally gathered up the courage to confess to her, she’d chosen Sollux over him and broken off their moirallegiance entirely. In the end, though, Sollux and Feferi broke up a few weeks later to be just friends, and Feferi moved to study abroad, leaving the two behind with just each other.

With Eridan, one always had to take his words with a grain of salt because he tended to downplay or overplay details, but the picture he painted shed some light on the situation. After that, why wouldn’t Sollux believe that Karkat would break up with him, or that Eridan purposefully wooed Karkat to recreate their past? If Karkat hadn’t known Eridan better than that (and he hoped he did, he hoped he wasn’t falling for some pathetic act like a chump), he wouldn’t have thought to put a petty act of revenge past him.

“Well, whatever. You can do whatever you want now,” Eridan said disdainfully.

“I don’t really know what I want to do now,” he admitted softly.

“Are you goin’ to break up with him?” Karkat tried hard not to hear the hopeful note in Eridan’s voice. Maybe petty revenge did play a little role, after all. Maybe it was a nice side effect.

“No, I am not breaking up with him, even if you ask me to. But that doesn’t mean I’d choose him over you. I don’t want to break up with you, either, but it doesn’t sound like you guys are giving me a lot of choice.”

Eridan sighed deeply, and turned around to leave.

“Where are you going?” Karkat asked after him.

“Out for a walk.” He wrapped his scarf twice around his neck.

“Wait.”

Karkat moved to get his coat from the closet, but Eridan shook his head. “No offense, Kar, but I need some time by myself without you breathing down my gills. I’ve got a lot a feelings to sort out.”

“Wait, Eridan. You don’t have to–” He reached out, for Eridan’s arm or the tail of his coat or any part of him he had no idea. All he knew was the last few minutes had been awful and he’d do anything to get Eridan to stop and put his snow boots away.

“Don’t wait up on my account.”

He left. Two minutes later, the car started in the driveway and rock salt crunched beneath its tires. Karkat threw his head back toward the ceiling and released a frustrated growl. What an idiot he was. The anger that had felt like made up his entire existence not half an hour ago drained away like water through cracks, replaced with humiliation and self-loathing. The only conclusion his mind would come to was somehow this was just another elaborate attempt by his subconscious to self-destruct every aspect of his life. He always had to keep pushing and pushing and pushing even when he’d already pushed himself off the cliff.

Sollux was in his room on the computer. He didn’t say anything when Karkat entered, and Karkat said nothing to him. He laid down on the waterbed and stared at the back of Sollux’s head until his eyes hurt and turned his head to stare at the ceiling instead.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.” Sollux’s voice was soft. Had he heard their raised voices through the walls?

“Can we just delete that conversation, like we do our logs? Like forget it ever happened.”

“Already done, KK.” He spun his chair ninety degrees, his arm draped casually over the side. “I don’t even know what conversation you’re talking about.”

~

Eventually, Karkat and Sollux retreated to the blanket pile in the living room. Probably for the first time in their entire moirallegiance they spoke candidly with each other. Sollux filled in the details of his story he’d left out before- the extent of his relationship with Feferi, the sweep they’d been a trio similar to how Karkat made them a trio now, the eventual break-up and blame that formed the foundation of their rivalry when they’d found themselves both attending the same university. The events happened a little differently than in Eridan’s version– Feferi apparently had been planning on breaking up with Eridan for some time before Sollux entered the picture– and some things made more sense while others made less. Afterwards Karkat held his hand and related what Eridan had told him. It was met with Sollux’s usual skepticism.

“And after all of that, you’re still together?” he asked in disbelief.

“Still together.” Karkat sighed, buried himself deeper in the blankets.

“He was in love with her. Thought they were destined to be matesprits forever and dumb shit like that.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that, too. But you know I used to think me and Terezi were always going to wind up together, so I’m not going to hold that against him.”

“I can’t decide if this is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard or the saddest, and it’s ten times worse because it’s you.”

“Trust me, I feel exactly the same way. I know I should hate him for all that, but... I really can’t.”

Sollux raised an eyebrow at this. “What do you mean you can’t? I know you have it in you to really hate people. I’ve never seen anyone flip out as hilariously as you do over the smallest things.”

“It’s not the same.” Karkat crossed his arms and tucked his chin to his chest. “I can hate what people do and I can get mad as hell at them for being idiots like a normal person, but it changes when I get to know them. The closer I get to them, the better I understand who they are, what motivates them and why they act the way they do. After a certain point, I start to feel like I understand them almost as well as they understand themselves, but when I do, I can’t hate them so much anymore. It’s like I hit this point where I can’t help but flip for them and nothing can stop me, not even myself or common sense.”

“That sounds like a lot of romcom nonsense, but I guess you must be that way since you watch it so much.” He chuckled lightly at Karkat’s scowl and brought his hand up with a soft pap against his cheek. “I’m just kidding. Maybe if you understand someone as much as they understand themselves, that sort of thing is inevitable. People cut themselves a lot of slack for their shit.”

“True, and I guess that’s a part of it. The other part is that when I do know a person well, after that no matter what happens I only ever see their good side. I’m so stupid that way. After everything Eridan’s done, all I can think of is how loyal he was to Feferi until the end and I like that about him.”

“I never said he didn’t have any good points. They’re just so horribly unbalanced by the bad ones it gives me a headache to think about it.” He rolled his eyes up and bit his bottom lip, the evidence validating his claim. Karkat massaged his temples while he continued, “It feels so good to finally get all this off my chest. I never realized how draining it was not telling you any of that but now that I have I feel great for once.”

“We’re moirails. This is how moirallegiance works. You tell me stuff that’s bothering you, and I say stuff back, and we both feel better.”

“I mean, I don’t feel all the way better because you’re still dating my douchebag ex, but I think that will be easier to deal with now.”

Karkat snorted. “It better be because that’s not going to change. I think.”

“You think?”

“He said he had to sort his feelings out. I’m trying not to get myself worked up because obviously I had to do the same but I can’t help but think there might be a chance he decides to get himself out of this clusterfuck.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he reassured him with a smirk. “If there’s one thing Eridan is that even I have to admit, it’s that he’s smarter than he acts like most of the time. He’s way more interested in you than he ever was with Feferi. If he doesn’t figure that out, then I really overestimated him when we were dating.”

Karkat didn’t say it, but that made him feel a lot better.

~

The front door opened and closed. Wet footsteps scuffed against the floors and then it was oddly quiet. He opened one eye and saw Eridan’s silhouette standing in the vestibule. “Get over here, chumbreath.” Karkat swept his arm out, gesturing to the empty space in the pile on his other side.

“Um.” Eridan looked pointedly at Sollux. Karkat rolled his eyes.

“He’s asleep,” he said. After a moment’s hesitation, Eridan crossed the room to the pile and lay down beside him, still wearing his coat and scarf and all. A few white flakes clung stubbornly to his dark hair, which Karkat banished with a swat of his hand.

“He told me about you two, finally. All I can say is, I think the both of you are a couple of dumbasses that give the turkey a run for its money as the world’s dumbest animal and I have to be the sane one while you two run around in circles flailing your arms.”

Eridan was, for once, thoughtfully silent. “I guess I understand where you’re comin’ from,” he admitted. “You did everythin’ you could with all the facts you had at hand, even though they were shoddy and mostly made-up.”

Karkat didn’t call him out on insulting Sollux. He wasn’t going to auspistize between them. “So, um. How was your walk?”

“Refreshin’.” He tugged at the buttons on his coat front. Karkat went to help him, his fingers swifter and defter and not numbed from the cold. The coat slid over Eridan’s shoulders and was tossed blindly to the sofa. The scarf stayed for the moment for Karkat to paw at nervously.

“Sollux and I had a pretty intense feelings jam. Maybe the first real one we ever had and it was pretty exhausting. I think we’re going to be okay, though. Or we’re going to try pretty fucking hard to be okay. We sorted a lot of our feelings out.” Smooth. He was as subtle as a sucking chest wound.

“Yeah, I guess I can say the same. Only it was more like a feelings jam with myself, and from the looks a things involved a lot less piles and more licorice dogs.”

“Did you spend the last four hours binging on licorice dogs?”

A pause. “No.” He cleared his throat softly. “That’s besides the point anyways so you don’t need to be thinkin’ a that. I just spent most a that time thinkin’ a us and some stuff I really want to get off my nub.”

Karkat’s hands clenched around the scarf, throat constricting. “Go ahead,” he managed to choke out.

“I don’t really know if I should be sayin’ this. I really wish I hadn’t been so nice and invitin’ Sol along even when I knew somethin' like this might happen. Really there’s no one to blame but myself, so I guess in that sense I don’t care if you’re mad at me for that.”

“I’m a little mad.” Karkat’s voice was sharp, cutting Eridan off to get back to his original point.

“Um. Well– after all this, don’t you think we still make a good couple? It always seemed like you and I were made for each other and you just happened to be moirails with my ex, but none a that should change how we are together.”

Relief flooded over him and for the first time in hours Karkat relaxed. Something like tentative happiness was replacing his apprehension and it became easier to talk now that he knew his quadrants could be salvaged. “Out of all the trolls on campus, it figures the one I fall horns over heels for is the one my moirail can’t stand. It’s like you said, though. Nothing he does changes the way I feel about you.” He brought one tail of Eridan’s scarf to his lips, inhaling the cool smell of salt and cologne. In that moment he knew he wanted nothing more than to throw himself on Eridan and figure this out because he sure as hell didn’t want to lose this. “This has become one giant mess. I don’t know anymore if I’m untangling it or making it worse.”

“I know it’s weird to have your two red quadrants fighting with each other but if you think about it, it’s none a your business really.”

“I don’t care if you guys fight. I do care about all the damage you seem to cause along the way like a couple of inconsiderate assholes. Then it becomes my business.”

“Oh. I guess I oughtta apologize for gettin’ you kicked out of the movies and staining your good pants. Even if it was mostly Sol’s fault. I’m sure he hasn’t apologized yet.”

Karkat squeezed his eyes shut. “So what I should take from this conversation is that you don’t want to break up and you aren’t going to stop picking fights with Sollux,” he said flatly.

“Well, I would, but obviously that four-horned land licker isn’t goin’ to stop any time soon so it’s only smart I get the drop on him first. I’m thinkin’ tactics here, Kar. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to. I can handle him just fine on my own.”

Karkat groaned, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. Eridan humphed softly beside him, slipping an arm around his waist before burrowing his face against his clavicle, horns scratching Karkat’s chin. “I must be the biggest self-hating douche in this hemisphere to put myself in these kinds of situations.”

“That makes you all the more pitiful.” He drew closer until Karkat could see the drops of melted snowflakes clinging to Eridan’s eyelashes. “I mean it, Kar. Even on the worst days you make me flush with a fire positively sanguineous that burns so brightly the stars yield beneath its tendrils.”

Sollux groaned. He wasn’t asleep after all and, Karkat realized with a hot blush that went to the tips of his ears, had witnessed the entire embarrassing moment between them. “Augh. Shut the fuck up, ED. Can’t a guy get a little shut-eye with his moirail without having his aural sponges harassed by the sounds of your overdramatized feelings?”

“Shoosh.” Karkat frowned. “I’ve made my decision: fuck the both of you. I don’t care what happened when or who grated who’s horns first. From now until we’re back in school, we are all going to act like civilized adult trolls. Agreed? Good.”

Eridan and Sollux grumbled something in unison. Both firmed their holds around Karkat possessively. Quadrants shouldn’t have been this messy, he thought, but he couldn’t fully convince himself it was an absolute truth. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t hate either of them in any way that wasn’t wrapped in a silk cocoon woven from shades of red. He loved them too much, and they both loved him the only ways they understood how. His fingers carded through Sollux’s hair. He turned his head and kissed the tip of Eridan’s fin tenderly.

“Good,” he said.

They spent the day in the blanket pile. Outside, the dawn had broken behind the grey clouds. It was snowing.

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to Rosae~
> 
> Truth be told, I was really worried when I first saw your request. Once I got these three talking, though, I had a blast writing this, which is probably why it's almost all dialogue after a certain point XD Though it lacks a lot of narrative, I hope it was still enjoyable to read. 
> 
> Merry Christmas!


End file.
